Slack Integration Changes Feedback: Posts No Longer Ephemeral

I use the Asana integration in Slack to create personal Asana tasks based on people’s messages. When I used to do this, a message would be posted in the channel or DM that would say “visible only to you”. Now all of a sudden, the messages are posted but visible to everyone in the DM. This absolutely changed over the past week or so. What gives? and is there a way to switch this back? It’s made it where I literally can no longer use the integration, because I don’t want people seeing I’m creating tasks with due dates. Note, when people click on the link in the message they get an error, cause the tasks I’m creating are personal to me.

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It looks like I can remove the optional “Slack Channel” value from the “New Asana Task” modal that appears. If done, it no longer posts a “created task” message anywhere in Slack. This unfortunately defaults to the channel you are in, so it’s kind of annoying I need to remove it each time. It’s also frustrating, because I can’t then look at the channel or DM and see that I already created a task for an item.

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It seems like there has been an update to the Slack integration in the last week or so and boy does our team hate it :sweat_smile: .

Now you have to UNSELECT from posting in the channel if you make a task from a Slack comment. This is a different behavior from before and since people didn’t get a notice (most don’t follow release updates, etc.) people are creating tasks in public channels that they were expecting to be private to them. This option is displayed below the key information so you would have to know to scroll down to even see it and to see that the default is to share in the channel and to turn that off. Making matters substantially worse, it seems you can’t even delete that Slack post if you make it by mistake. I tried deleting the task to see if that would fix it but it does not. Using the note emoji function/shortcut to create a task doesn’t even give you the chance to opt out of posting to the channel.

This is pretty user unfriendly design. I work so hard to get my colleagues to love Asana as much as I do. I don’t know if this is an Asana side decision or a Slack side decision but I hope you will improve this so the default does not create a message at all but rather return to creating a private post with the option to share to the channel and most certainly include the ability to delete the post from Slack if it is created by mistake. Screenshot of the new optional posting below as well as the fact that it’s not even visible from the top view.

Thanks

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Thanks for bringing this to us @Jackie_Matuza ! I’ve flagged with the relevant PM who would know more :folded_hands:

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PM here, thanks for the feedback! We’re really sorry that this change wasn’t communicated more clearly to users of this feature. What we used to do was, after you created a task, we sent you a private message asking if you wanted to share that task with others. However, we had to update the “Create Task” modal to Slack’s latest design component and they have now blocked us from doing that. We looked around at other apps and found that adding this selection was the most common way that other apps are solving for it. We debated between whether to make it default-on or default-off, but have heard from other customers that having it default-on was a priority for workflows with a high-volume of task creation from Slack, and also seems to be the default that other Slack apps in our space have settled on. Apologies again for the confusion!

Thanks for responding. Is there nothing that can be done to delete the Slack posts that are created by mistake? Seems pretty odd that you can delete any other post.

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Chiming in here because I went looking on Google to figure out why Asana was suddenly posting my tasks in Slack…thanks @Jackie_Matuza for calling out the hidden Slack Channel field! It would have taken me way too long to find that :melting_face: hopefully this design can be updated soon! It’s really silly to be clogging up slack channels with task alerts.

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yes, same here, this is excruciating and frustrating, if you’re used to using this integration all day. My other work around was using hotkeys to move quicker (on mac):

  • cmd+K: open search bar
  • type the first letter or two of my name, arrow down to select, enter
  • start typing /c for “Create a task” and then just complete it there, so you’re just messaging yourself.

Unfortunately it doesn’t link back to the place in slack relevant to the task, which I know is sometimes the whole point. To me this is enshittification in action: they can’t resist changing that default to share messages publicly, because of how much engagement it might generate, but it creates a worse user experience.

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I hope it can be changed as well - especially that right now when using Asana’s extension on mobile Slack I’m unable to clear this selection :cry: It’s a bummer that (optional) field is actually preselected

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Please advise if there is any update here to delete these tasks in public slack msgs - not necessary.

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@Aimee_Jaquet and @Erika_Gardner1 feel free to vote on this topic at the top left of the page which Asana uses to track how important/popular a product feedback post is.

In the future, you can either unselect the Slack Channel field to have it not post anything at all, or select it to DM yourself (if you want a success message to confirm that it worked / a link to the task that was created, but don’t want it to go into the public channel).

Is there nothing that can be done to delete the Slack posts that are created by mistake? Seems pretty odd that you can delete any other post.

We’ll investigate if there’s a way that you can delete the posts that are created by mistake, but since they’re technically posted by the Slack app and not by you, it’s unlikely. We’re also looking to make the task success message post in-thread, so at least it’s a bit more hidden from the rest of the channel

@Sophia_Chen I strongly suggest that you shift to “default-off”, at least until you figure out a way for users to delete these posts after they are sent. The New Asana Task defaults to not being in a Project, therefor a private task that goes only to My Tasks section in Asana where only I have visibility. It’s confusing that you would default to a private task in Asana, but then have it result in a public undeletable post in Slack. Seems like a clear mismatch in defaults.

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This has been a disaster for me. Please allow the app, which created the message, to delete the message.

Please allow option to change the default to private.

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Please, please change this

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This is awful AND embarrassing. I didn’t know it had changed and added a task for myself in the ELT channel and then everyone started sending me stuff as if I’d asked THEM to do something instead of a task for myself. :-1::-1:

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I’m don’t believe the technical explanation fully lines up with what’s actually possible in Slack’s platform. There are many fixes and options:

  • Slack’s updated Block Kit still fully supports ephemeral messages with interactive buttons, including a ‘Share to channel’ action. Updating the modal to Slack’s latest design system doesn’t prevent the previous behavior - it can still call chat.postEphemeral after task creation and include potential follow-up actions.

  • It can also still listen for bot_message and message events, so there are multiple ways to preserve the “private first, share if you want” .

  • The default behavior (post to channel on/off) could live in user-level settings - letting high‑volume teams keep their preferred default without forcing it on everyone.

  • This is true: Users cannot delete non‑ephemeral app‑posted messages. That’s a Slack platform limitation. However, the APP can - maybe an easier fix is to have a / command or button that allows a user to ask the app to delete the message

  • Given the privacy implications, the “Select Channel” dropdown needs to be above the fold: Right now it’s visually hidden unless you scroll

If the main driver here is that you have high‑volume customers need the default‑on behavior for their workflows, that’s totally understandable - it would be helpful to be explicit about that. Then the rest of us can look forward to a user‑level default setting or other option when it becomes available.

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+1 to all of the above.

I use the Slack integration to quickly capture tasks for myself — often rough, unfinished items that aren’t ready to be shared. The new default of posting to the channel where the message originated is a real problem for this workflow. I now have to manually scroll down and change the channel on every task I create, which adds friction to what should be a quick capture action.

A few specific points:

The “high-volume customers prefer this” argument doesn’t hold up to me. If anything, high-volume task creators are the people most harmed by this default — they’re the ones who would flood a channel with “X created a task” notifications. Surely the previous ephemeral/private-to-you behaviour was far better for heavy users.

The obvious fix is a user-level default setting — let people choose whether task creation posts to a channel or not. Those who want visibility can opt in; those who don’t aren’t forced to fight the UI on every task.

Android bug: you cannot clear the channel selection. AFAICT on Android, once the Slack channel field is populated (which it is by default), there is no way to clear it entirely. The only workaround is to redirect the post to a channel where it won’t matter (e.g. a DM to yourself or to the Asana bot), which is obviously not a real solution. This should be treated as a bug — the field needs a clear/remove option.

To summarise what I’d like to see:

  1. A user-level preference to control whether task creation defaults to posting in the originating channel (defaulting to off, or at minimum, respecting the user’s last choice).

  2. A fix for the Android client so the Slack channel field can be properly cleared.

  3. Ideally, a return to the previous ephemeral “visible only to you” confirmation, with an option to share publicly.

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An absolute disaster not notifying users about this change :tired_face:

Like many others here, I rely heavily on the Slack integration to create relevant tasks from conversations and threads. I understand that there is now a new component, but does the Slack channel field really need to be prefilled and placed below the rest of the fields?

I did what I’ve always done, created a task quickly from a message, and ended up notifying the entire company about a personal task.

Luckily, the task didn’t contain anything sensitive, but it easily could have put me in a very embarrassing situation.

I understand the goal of improving visibility, but the default behavior should absolutely be off. Posting tasks publicly should be an intentional action, not something that happens automatically because the field is prefilled.

Hey everyone, thanks for the detailed and thoughtful breakdown, we’re actively working on several of these points of feedback

First, to clarify the technical constraint, especially to @Angela_G2: When transitioning from Slack Dialogs to Block Kit Modals, we’re moving to “context-independent” architecture where the modal is treated as a separate surface from the conversation that triggered it. Unlike the older Dialog system, modal submission payloads do not automatically include a response_url (the temporary “door” used to post an ephemeral message back to a specific channel or DM). This creates a permission gap: if the app hasn’t been explicitly invited to a private conversation or DM, it lacks the authorization to post a message there via standard API methods. We worked with Slack on how to resolve this, and this solution (including an interactive element within the modal like the “Post to this channel” dropdown to explicitly generate the necessary hook for the response) was their suggestion. While there are some other hacks that could be used make the message send ephemerally in this specific scenario, they were strongly not recommended by Slack.

That said, we’re actively working on shipping two improvements to address the biggest pain points:

  1. Channel selection moving above the fold: The field will be clearly visible at the top of the task creation window so you always see it before submitting. No more hidden surprises.

  2. Task messages will post in the thread: For users who do share the task link, it will appear as a thread reply rather than a top-level channel post, significantly reducing noise and unnecessary notifications.

@Simon_Jarvis1 We’re also investigating the android bug, but yes the workaround is to select it to send as a DM to yourself.

We’re also continuing to evaluate enabling post deletion for messages posted by mistake.

We appreciate your patience and your detailed feedback, it directly shapes how we prioritize these improvements. We’ll post updates here as we make progress.

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